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Wilful Behaviour
Donna Leon
Heinemann £16.99 |
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Reviewed by Judith Cutler |
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To my shame, although Donna
Leon won the CWA/The Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction in 2000,
this was the first I've read in her Commissario Brunetti series.
Neither do I know Venice as well as I'd like, a pity since Leon
establishes the city as more a deeply flawed character than a mere
location.
Wilful Behaviour is beautifully written, with moral distinctions and
graduations much in the tradition of Henry James and Edith Wharton,
two authors much admired by Brunetti's professor wife, Paola. It is
she who is responsible for her husband's interest in the problems of
one of her students, Claudia Leonardo, who wishes to obtain an
official pardon for an unspecified criminal who died in horrible
circumstances after the Second World War. Soon Claudia is found
dead, and Brunetti picks his delicate way through the tortuous
processes of Italian justice, riddled with corruption, inefficiency
and deviousness. Justice either for the dead or for the living is
impossible, while old and morally bankrupt families keep tight
fingers entwined in the mesh holding the city together. All one can
hope for is an appropriate conclusion.
t's always difficult when writing a series to create a balance
between the needs of new readers and those familiar with your series
characters. Brunetti leaps triumphantly from the page, as does his
wife. But their children are introduced with an audible crashing of
gears, a clumsy telling, not relaxed showing, and a major character,
Signorina Elettra, apparently an old and trusted colleague, gets no
introduction at all. If you know the series, these blemishes will no
doubt sink to insignificance in this elegantly narrated and finely
plotted novel. If you do not, try to ignore them anyway.
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